Somewhere Only We Know

I can't believe that it's been almost the entire month and I have yet to update. Minus the fact that the internet was out for a while, life has only gotten busier for me and it is actually pretty surprising for me because this was supposed to be me "down-time" since I'm not in school. So here I am sitting at my mom's house fighting back my many flooded thoughts when I realized I had this... my twilyte abandon... to turn to.

In an attempt to go from the least complicated to the most, everything with my family is basically the same. My living situation still remains unknown. How? I haven't the slightest clue. With the whole tax return nonsense I was almost positive everything was going to come crashing down but here I am. In one piece and still doing my best to get by. Watching my sister is getting easier though I find that my patience is only lessening. I try to be nice and fun but I find that I am mostly exhausted and agitated every time she bites or hits me. What she really needs is some friends her own age to teach her the proper etiquette on what is acceptable and what is not. Us penalizing her and putting her into time-out isn't cutting it. But I guess she'll learn eventually. I really hope things take a turn for the better for my parents. I hate to know they're struggling. I hate to feel sometimes that they may be struggling when I am not. I don't know... just a lot of thoughts. And I still haven't really spoken to my dad. My grandfather's brother passed away. He's going to the Philippines while my grandmother is going to Mascoutah. I can't even imagine them being apart. (sigh)

Work is well... I am officially a permanent employee at a new store. It's located in Cicero and the customers are insane. Heh. The store is just not as organized as I'm used to and Israel is doing everything in his power to change it, but I guess we're feeling the resistance from within. The new guys I work with are cool. They're just used to doing things their own way and here we come waltzing in to turn their mindsets upside down. I get it. I understand them. I just wish they didn't judge me so quickly. I wish they gave me that breathing room. That welcome. I'm so used to be so comfortable at work and now I'm being put in a warzone and honestly, I think it's only for the best. I can only learn from it. I just really want to get promoted already. People are taking their time and words are meaning less and less to me. And with Kris promoted and all amazing at being third-key I don't know what I want anymore. I know I can do it. I just don't want this stupid wavering confidence to get in the way.

Socially I have entered a new front completely. I have now become a proud member of the Chicago club scene. I get in for free. I get free drinks. I love the loud music. I get to dance like an idiot. People even take my picture sometimes. It's weird. Never thought I'd like it... but I think I'm just getting caught in wanting to experience it all. I finally realized that I have just this one life to live so I am going to see what I can and do what I can before I can't anymore. I've been drinking a lot lately too. That one needs to stop. I have been kind of frivolous with my money in that way but am progressively getting better. I think this is part of the growing process. This freedom I want to experience. The carefree. The restless. The energy. Heh. Maybe I'm just getting started.

Chach... my dearest ChachMo... what oh what are we doing? Heh. Now that he's getting into the club scene too I feel the need to give him his own alloted space. It's kind of like we only get so much time to dance with whoever and be whoever and do whatever and I want him to be able to feel that rush of freedom and excitement too. I hate to think how independent we are from one another now. Maybe not financially and we do honestly still function well together in our home I just feel like emotionally we're straying. Like we're drifting from one another. We just don't have to the time together. The energy to put the effort. Like we want it all to be there whenever we want to just call on it... but I don't know if we even do that anymore. Don't get me wrong, I love him to death. I want happiness for him and I want to make sure he eats and sleeps well and has a good day... but things are changing right in front of us and we really need to decide how we're going to deal with this change before it takes control of us and next thing we know, we're strangers.

That's the gist of it. A quick polaroid of my life right now. Oh... I'm also on a stupid antibiotic for the swollen lymph nodes in my neck. They aren't swollen or hurting me anymore but I have over a week of medication left. Yay! I have to take it 4 times a day. It's craziness. If I'm not healed after all this there may be something wrong with my thyroid. We'll see. I'll be back. But now it's definitely time for sleep. Good night.

Back to Where Your Heart Is

"Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth."

Oh how they hang from her. Hypnotized by her scrutinizingly innocent eyes.
Weave me my ideal they beg. Show me what I want to see.
Be who I cannot find and I shall worship, I shall inhale your very existence.
Like the final flame of humanity, they cradle and protect her from the elements.
My own. My love. My secret. My wonder.
Possession to its fullest extent and this muse imprisons herself.

Who created thee? Who breathed you into life my ladylove?
What entity... what artist... sculpted this most perfect beauty?
And as they raise the pedestal higher and higher still,
eyes wide open they fail to see.

A metamorphic ghost. A shell missing its core.
Life simply without breath. Without organs.
And blood. And flesh.
She is but an ever-changing wisp of hollowed time.

And through triumphant failures will they climb.
Proclamation and creed their only just cause.
Stitching ever so carefully a blanket of conformity that will devour her.

Come one, come all to attempt this feat and jest in masked glory.
But be weary for the fates are against you.
For the winds will unravel her. And the waters will cleanse her.
The sun will warm and awaken her beating heart.
The earth will take her from your pedestal and lay her gently upon its surface,
and you will finally see...
... who I am. Who I was. Who I will be.
And only then will your love be free.

High Rise & Free Falling

Pitch black. Gray smoke filled every inch to the brim.
Blue bar of light. Shrinking and growing.
Almost able to hold it between my fingers but it playfully moved itself out of reach.
Time to go. Eyes closed. Body moving.
Hold on for the ride. Roller-coaster. Free spin.
Door to the bed in one flash of light.
Pants. Sweater. Change now.
Half of pants and not a button-down.
What the hell is going on?
Youtube. Glow-sticks.
Letters and numbers. What do they mean?
Every second a new symbol.
Did you see that? Japanese.
Paper cutout animals and people.
Faces and emotions.
Pulling me in like a puppet show. Like I'm there.
Laughter. Pants. Sweater.
Frustration. Laughter.
More videos. On the bed.
And suddenly we're falling.
The bed is a wall and the wall is the sky.
Hold on! Oh my God.
We're falling. Stop laughing.
Can't you feel the pressure and the weight pushing downward on your skin?
It tingles. How do we stop? The bed. I'm falling off the bed.
What will I hold on to?
You tell me to move. I'm like lightning.
And you say, "What? What happened?"
Falling. After the falling came the swirling.
Down. Down. Down.
Down a black spiral drain.
My entire body swaying to the suction.
Pulling me in. My legs are shrinking.
"What? What's happening?"
Falling. Swirling. My neck!
Oh how my neck hurts.
Please go and get me some ibuprofen.
"Tell me what's going on."
Stop playing with me. I just told you.
The falling. The drain.
And at the end of the falling you were supposed to embrace me.
Arms open wide. Catch me. Hold me.
But you just stared at me. "Huh?"
Hold me! Please! Remember the falling?
Who is going to catch me?
Arms open. You stared at my open arms.
No closer did you come. Rejection.
"What's going on? You're freaking me out."
This story again. Just listen.
I keep telling you and telling you.
The falling. The drain. The embrace.
Rejection. Blank stares. More questions.
Lay with me. Please. I am so confused.
My neck is so painful. Please help me.
I need my ibuprofen.
Silence.
Phone calls. I think in my head about who I want to call. But after a few minutes...
...I am unable to determine whether I actually called them or not.
Like my thoughts became reality. Or did they?
Did I just imagine their voices? Their faces? Their tones?
I constantly am running images through my head.
Situations and their many pathways.
But I can tell which is real and which is fake.
Unless I'm dreaming.
PAUSE.
Looking at you. You are now so far away.
Please come closer and lay with me.
"You're freaking me out. What is going on?"
The same damn fucking questions.
I just need you to listen. Listen to me.
Listen to my story. Stop looking at me like I'm stupid.
Stop playing with my emotions.
My neck is hurting so badly. Please come closer.
Bring me my ibuprofen. I know it's far but I don't think I can walk.
Why do you want me to tell you the story again?
They all said they would get me ibuprofen. He said he would get me ibuprofen.
They want my pain to cease. You... you are just staring at me.
My tears are falling. So rejected. The pain is too much.
You're not listening to me. You never listen.
Did I just yell at you? I'm so sorry.
Was I yelling? "Huh?"
I'm sorry if I was yelling. It was just that we were falling.
Spiraling. Moving. Then you didn't do what you were supposed to.
You were supposed to catch me mid-air in an embrace.
Then when we were laying you were supposed to kiss me.
Even a short friendly kiss.
But there was nothing. You just stared at me.
And I curled into a ball of confusion.
Then more questions.
More and more and more questions.
I'm not talking to you anymore.
I'm sorry.
I know what you're doing.
Laughing at me.
Taking advantage of me like this.
I don't know what is going on an instead of guiding me.
Loving me. Being there for me.
You are making me into a joke.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
What a funny guy.
I just wanted you to play your part in the ending.
And now all I can remember is your blank stare.
Your stupid questions. How you egged on this insanity.
Ibuprofen? Now. Okay.
Let me lay here.
Doors. Open. Close. Maybe he can't find it.
Same door. Open. Close. Crinkle.
A wrapper? Food. I'm hungry.
Getting up at the door. You run to block my way.
Jerk. You lied. You didn't look for my ibuprofen.
You said you were going to and thought I would sleep.
Thought I would forget. Thought I was making up my need for it.
I'm heating up my delicious food and you are stuck eating candy.
That's what you get. No sharing. You left me.
And now you want to share with me?
I know you're hungry. Ok. Fine. Share.
Stop trying to trick me. To get me not to eat so you can have it all.
What is wrong with you? I am so angry with you.
For playing so many games. And not coming through.
For laughing at me when I was/am vulnerable.
For acting clueless when in reality you knew exactly what was going on.
A puppeteer and his toy.
We used to call you Toy Maker. And I felt bad for calling you "Toy."
But now I see that in reality you made me into a toy.
Stringing me along. Poor little puppet.
Stupid little puppet. Ignorant little toy.
How I slept I can't recall.
I just remember being in the bed. And hearing you watch movies on my laptop.
I looked over to you and expected a nurturing caring gaze.
But instead I saw more emptiness. More of the same.
"I didn't expect you to be sober."
"Are you sober?"
Of course I'm sober. Not really.
Just not talking to you.
Back to bed.
Back to my dreams.
Back to my delusional reality.
Darkness.
It all started in darkness with that blue bar.

Say What You Need to Say

ring ring.

Hello.

We only see each-other on our off times. You get up as I stay asleep. And when I fall asleep you still have hours left to go. You work. I work. My mom's. And somewhere in-between I feel like I've desensitized myself to you. Late the other night I realized that and felt really strongly on making that change. Somewhere in my head I thought that if I have been doing this to you - maybe things between us aren't as terrible as I think. I've just been so caught up somewhere else that I haven't been paying attention to what is really going on. Have you missed me? I can barely recall you wanting to lay together. Or you playing with my hair. So I decided to be vulnerable again. Ready to embrace you so that I would no longer take anything for granted or miss out on the slightest hints. But that last night. Quick. Brisk. Unattached. Then again today. No call in the morning and then telling me to stop getting my hopes up. Why is it that I was so convinced you'd ready to come straight here. You must've missed me. Come here and help me. Heh. Come here and just be with me. But all I got was a chill mockery to this newfound change I wanted to take place. Just because the immediate results were disappointing, it doesn't mean it will always be like this. That you will always be like this. Maybe your eyes need to be opened as well. I can't blame you for something you might not see. There were so many things I wanted to say to you. But in the end all there was was:

Good-bye.

All I Have To Give

Funny how life runs itself in circles. Bringing the past into the future and making the present the past. I saw Sammy yesterday. It was the first time we had seen each-other on our terms for the entire 10 years of having one another in our lives. He was my technical first boyfriend at 12 years old and of course it didn't work out. We were kids. And after that drama came and went Sam became one of my closest friends. I'm the type who keeps the people I love in my life forever. I don't make lifelong friendships every day, but the ones I do, I try to keep. I love the comfort that comes with someone who has known you through every up and down and in-between. For a long time it was me with Krystn and Sammy and then when high school hit Jo comes into play and Gina. There was Winda for the short time we were friends and Trisha. When in Mascoutah I had Britni and Kahiwalani. Now Mike... and of course there has always been Kris. These are the pieces of my heart and soul. Though I may not talk to some of these people every day or even often and there is one who I am sure cannot stand the idea of me... these are the people who have impacted and altered my life forever.

So we finally got to see each-other and the first thing he does is give me the look. The one where he looks like he's staring at the greatest creation on earth and that he can't believe he survived so long without it. I wasn't honestly expecting it. But there it was. So we go and meet his closest friends. He shows me all his artwork and all the tiny bits and pieces of his life he feels he can fit into the short time we have together. We talk about our families, relationships, friends, hopes and heartaches. And then of course it had to come. The moment where the past collides head-on with the present. But I have no room for my past in my present. I probably spend more of my time avoiding my past then I do trying to relive it. And of course he tells me all the things every girl wants to hear. The sincerity and heart and then of course the sadness that followed when I had nothing to give in return. How is it that I have had this exact moment with so many guys I have become close friends with? And regardless of how amazing their efforts are... there is no one I want to come home to but Kris.


We've had so much childish drama in our past. We have hurt each-other. We hurt each-other now. We argue and fuss about the past and frivolous nothings and yet when it comes to the final moment, all I want is him. We have made our mistakes. And are still trying to make our way through a good number of them. But it takes a smack of reality for me to realize that no matter how much we go through... I refuse to leave this relationship until I am positive that there is nothing left. That we have no fighting will. That all of our time and effort was not put in vain.

Maybe I'm ignorant. Naive. Hopeless.

Wake up call Lauren... love has not its imperfections.